The present invention is related to an improved heat-radiating structure co-usable with heat-radiating window of a housing of an electronic appliance. The heat-radiating structure includes multiple fin units forming a fin construction assembled in the heat-radiating window of the housing. The pitch between the adjacent fin units meets the safety standard regulated by IEC. Also, the heat-radiating structure can be easily manufactured.
Electronic appliance such as computer having a CPU or microprocessor in a housing will generate high heat. It is necessary to dissipate the heat. Otherwise, the heat will lead to loss of operation power or failure. Also, the heat will shorten the using life of the relevant components. A fan unit is mounted in the housing for circulating the airflow so as to radiate the heat out from the heat-radiating slots formed on the housing.
IEC regulates a safety standard of the heat-radiating slots for preventing alien articles from dropping into the housing through the heat-radiating slots and resulting in short circuit. That is, the width of the heat-radiating slot must be under 1 mm. However, it is a trend to manufacture the housing of the electronic appliance with plastic material instead of metal material so as to facilitate the manufacturing procedure and reduce the weight of the whole electronic appliance and lower manufacturing cost. In practice, it is hard to manufacture the housing by plastic injection molding and control the width of the heat-radiating slot under 1 mm. As shown in FIG. 1, the heat-radiating slot is quite narrow so that it is difficult to manufacture the mold. In addition, when molded, the screens y between the heat-radiating slots x are easy to have irregular edges. This leads to poor appearance. It is time-consuming to process and remove the irregular edges. Therefore, the manufacturing efficiency will be affected and the cost will be increased.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an improved heat-radiating structure co-usable with heat-radiating window of a housing of an electronic appliance. The heat-radiating structure makes the heat-radiating window of the housing of the electronic appliance free from the above regulation so that a manufacturer can easily manufacture the housing.
According to the above objects, the heat-radiating structure of the present invention includes: a housing having a rigid wall defining an interior space, at least one side of the rigid wall being formed with an opening or a heat-radiating window; and multiple fin units each having a free end and a connecting end connecting with an adjacent fin unit. The fin units form a series of fin constructions arranged at intervals. The adjacent fin units define a pitch or exhaustion gap under the standard value of 1 mm regulated by IEC. A fan unit is disposed behind the fin construction. The fan unit has a connecting section at front for connecting with the connecting end of the fin construction. The fan unit is formed with a flow way for conducting the heat generated in the housing toward the fin construction and dissipated out from the opening or heat-radiating window through the pitch or exhaustion gap.
The fin unit can be made of metal material such as aluminum and the total weight of the heat-radiating structure is possibly reduced. The front edges of the free ends of the fin construction are in flush with the inner face of the opening or heat-radiating window of the housing.
The present invention can be best understood through the following description and accompanying drawings wherein: